Forecasting Webinars

Forenote: We Are The Champions

In a season marred by more cheating and dirty play than a church league, I had the pleasure of teaming with this motley group below to win the 2018 SAS Basketball Championship.

Easy everyone...don't think I announce this to be glorified and put on a pedestal. We put our gym shoes on just like the rest of you -- one foot at a time. Except once our shoes are on, we win championships.

And don't be a hater and judge us by our looks. Just judge us by how we play ball.

2018 SAS Basketball League Champions

September 19: Why Are Forecasts So Wrong?

On September 19, noon - 1:30pm EDT, I will be delivering a Web Based Lecture through the American Statistical Association on Why Are Forecasts So Wrong? From the description:

In a series of articles in the journal Foresight, Steve Morlidge reported that 30-50% of real life business forecasts – the forecasts managers are using to run their organizations – are less accurate than a naïve forecast. This is astounding! And it raises the question: Why are real-life business forecasts so frequently so very wrong, and is there anything we can do about it?

This presentation reviews the main reasons why forecasts go wrong, and some of the worst practices that contribute to what Morlidge has called “avoidable error.” It shows how the method of Forecast Value Added analysis – now being employed at dozens of companies worldwide – can identify the waste and inefficiency in a forecasting process and result in more accurate forecasts.

Rather than focus on ever more elaborate data and modeling efforts, a more direct route to forecasting improvement is to instead focus on the organizational practices that just make a forecast worse. This presentation provides material you will find useful when dealing with organizational forecasting processes, and with organizational management.

This presentation is sponsored by ASA's Section on Statistical Consulting. It is intended for both business forecasting practitioners, and consultants / researchers working with organizations on their forecasting challenges.

October 11: Lessons Learned from 30+ Years of Forecasting Research and Experience

Business forecasters don’t often have the luxury of stepping back and looking at the big picture because their time is chewed up handling day-to-day issues and addressing problems. Nonetheless, it’s worthwhile to take a broader view from time to time—particularly when you can be guided by a renowned forecasting expert sharing insights distilled from 30+ years of experience in the field.

In this educational one-hour live Webinar, Dr. Len Tashman —Professor Emeritus, School of Business Administration, University of Vermont and Editor of Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting—will share principles for promoting good (and avoiding bad) forecasting practices. He will review major principles that have been revealed in the past decade for:

• managing the forecasting process and establishing behaviors that don’t compromise the process

Recognized for his excellence in teaching, Len synthesizes knowledge from evidence-based research with knowledge gained from working with companies to provide you with exceptional insights for improving forecasting in your organization.

About Author

Michael Gilliland is author of The Business Forecasting Deal (the book), and editor of Business Forecasting: Practical Problems and Solutions. He is a longtime business forecasting practitioner, and currently Product Marketing Manager for SAS Forecasting software. Mike serves on the Board of Directors for the International Institute of Forecasters, and received the 2017 Lifetime Achievement in Business Forecast award from the Institute of Business Forecasting. He initiated The Business Forecasting Deal (the blog) to help expose the seamy underbelly of forecasting practice, and to provide practical solutions to its most vexing problems.